Victory! Boycott forces GoDaddy to drop its support for SOPA

Under intense pressure from an Internet-wide boycott, domain registrar GoDaddy has given the open Internet an early Christmas present: it's dropping its support for the Stop Online Piracy Act. The change was announced in a statement sent to Ars Technica:

Go Daddy is no longer supporting SOPA, the "Stop Online Piracy Act" currently working its way through U.S. Congress.

"Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation—but we can clearly do better," Warren Adelman, Go Daddy's newly appointed CEO, said. "It's very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on this. Getting it right is worth the wait. Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it."

GoDaddy's embarrassing climbdown took barely 24 hours. The boycott started on Thursday on reddit (an Ars sister site), but it quickly spread to the broader Internet. GoDaddy's competitors began offering special deals with promo codes like "SopaSucks" to entice GoDaddy switchers.

Initially, GoDaddy was defiant. In a statement emailed to Ars Technica Thursday evening, the company said "Go Daddy has received some emails that appear to stem from the boycott prompt, but we have not seen any impact to our business."

But this reaction only enraged GoDaddy's customers. And evidently, the impact on their business began to be more obvious on Friday.

GoDaddy claims that during negotiations over SOPA, the company "fought to express the concerns of the entire Internet community and to improve the bill" by pushing to make the bill's provisions less onerous. But now the company has been forced to concede that the bill's authors did not adequately address the Internet community's concerns.

"In changing its position, Go Daddy remains steadfast in its promise to support security and stability of the Internet," the company's Friday statement reads. GoDaddy says it has removed past postings expressing support for the legislation from its website.

I think I just came as close as I ever have to LITERALLY rolling on the floor laughing. Half a day after their "no business impact expected from your puny boycott." HALF A DAY.

It's a half-victory. No doubt behind closed doors, whoever at Godaddy wanted to support this still supports this. However, it's now very very in the open what the internet-using portion of the general public thinks about this bill...

That was fast, but let's not get too happy too soon-they're capable of sneaking back in through the rear door, and supporting it quietly.It's called 'campaign donations' to those who get the law passed.

But they're also not the only ones who were on the list of public support for SOPA-those have to crumble too, to get a real win.

'Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation—but we can clearly do better," Warren Adelman'

Meaning he still thinks that government intervention and survellience is the way to go. So, once the heat dies down, he'll "help craft" more legislation and, this time, have the process be more low profile.

'Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation—but we can clearly do better," Warren Adelman'

Meaning he still thinks that government intervention and survellience is the way to go. So, once the heat dies down, he'll "help craft" more legislation and, this time, have the process be more low profile.

Sorry, Adelman, but a leapord doesn't change its spots that easily.

The question I have is what was in this bill that was going to make money for GoDaddy?

SOPA sucks so bad that even go daddy couldnt wait untill the 30th when they are going to take a massive hit regardless of wether they support the bill or not. As far as I am aware godaddy was being given the right to buy the domains that SOPA would of confiscated and this alone was enough to get them to support the craziest bill ever put before any legislative body. I felt sure that they would cave in I just didnt expect them to not even last till xmas.

'Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation—but we can clearly do better," Warren Adelman'

Meaning he still thinks that government intervention and survellience is the way to go. So, once the heat dies down, he'll "help craft" more legislation and, this time, have the process be more low profile.

Sorry, Adelman, but a leapord doesn't change its spots that easily.

The question I have is what was in this bill that was going to make money for GoDaddy?

From what I understand their head of legal counsel used to be head of copyright enforcement for the government, so she probably just leans that way naturally after that position.

The other theory, which has a little too much conspiracy in it perhaps, is that being a big company they could handle the painful administration that this bill would create for domain registrars, while other smaller companies could not. Not sure if that can hold much water.

I moved my domains. After the elephant hunting by their CEO I was actually thinking of switching anyway (not against hunters, but I can't support elephant hunting) so this just sealed the deal for me.

I'm still moving my domains. The SOPA stuff just pushed them on to my list of companies I won't endorse. Supporting the bill and then backpedaling due to fall out, doesn't change the fact that you initially backed SOPA and probably still do.

The question I have is what was in this bill that was going to make money for GoDaddy?

I don't know. Maybe there was some sort of quid pro quo involved. Or maybe he supported it for ideological reasons. Regardless of the reasons behind his support, the fact remains that he *did* support it, and by his own accounting helped craft the bill in some manner or other.

It's pretty great that consumers can still have an impressive impact on a company.

It doesn't change my mind about leaving them, as it seems to primarily be a marketing move to stanch the bleeding.

Fuck em. I've wanted to leave them since they started the misogynistic advertising, but inertia and all that. Not a valid excuse for not leaving, just the truth. Their stance on SOPA was the kick in the ass that I needed.

Damn I didn't know that they were supporting SOPA. Now, I am going to have to move all my domains, which is going to be a royal pain in the a$$. It doesn't matter that they have changed their mind under pressure, this isn't something they should have been backing in the first place. I suppose it is a good thing a lot of them were coming up for renewal, but this is still going to cost a fortune.

They are going to feel the pain of this for quite a while as the articles/tweets and what not are not just going to disappear.

The general population might be stupid, but they are not THAT stupid... and GD's base were/are of the geek variety, not average stupid Joe - they tend to identify a big pile of stinking shit on the very first sniff.

For a business that was "not feeling the impact" at all from the boycott that was a pretty fast about turn though one would be forgiven for thinking they were a bunch of lying SOBs when they made that statement just a few hours ago.

This also brings to light a pretty good tactic, identify the companies supporting SOPA and go after them one by one with a boycott...

Is GoDaddy also going to retract its statement given in support of SOPA to congress? You know the ones, the ones that would invite anyone in favor of SOPA to participate yet leave out anyone opposed and you know... the american public as a whole, yeah those guys.